The invention disclosed herein was conceived in connection with an effort to manufacture small electric motors more efficiently and economically. However, the principles may be used in the assembly of transformers, inductors and other devices such as relays which require the winding of wire on a form. For many years, machines have been used for winding wire on various forms. After the winding has been completed, the machine severs the wound coil from the supply reel, and as a result the last turn, or few turns, may tend to loosen. Accordingly, the next stage of production usually requires a manual operation wherein a worker must manually tighten the loosened turn, or turns, and apply some form of tape or harness to retain the individual turns in the desired position. In addition, it is common practice to manually strip the end of the wound wire of its enamel insulation and connect a heavier duty flexible wire to facilitate making external connections. The connection is manually insulated and placed in a position to provide mechanical and electrical protection. These costly manual steps tend to slow down the assembly process and frequently require a substantial number of skilled dexterous workers. Various techniques have been developed to try to eliminate, or at least minimize manual operations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,707 issued Apr. 3, 1973, to Leimbach et al and entitled Field Sub-assembly for Universal Electric Motors discloses a special terminal board and terminal which eliminates much of the hand labor of the prior art. However, the Leimbach et al. patent requires a more complicated coil winding machine in that the starting end and terminating end of the coil must be laid in a channel of a terminal and the channel crimped prior to the time that the wound coil is severed from the supply reel.
The teachings of the present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art and does not require a more complex coil winding machine.